Moving halfway across the world for university can feel quite daunting, especially when it’s your first ever experience of living on your own without your family. Figuring out how to actually cook a meal for yourself is hard enough without also having the navigate the minefield of a totally new set of values and practices. Take the Russian poker face, for example. Depending on where you’re from, you might be used to the sight of strangers smiling or laughing in public. Well, not in Russia, where it’s actually considered a hostile act to smile at a stranger. Before moving here, you might want to bear in mind the very Russian saying: “a smile without a reason is the signature of a fool”.